Information Overload. How do you avoid it?

Guys, you start out reading a book on trading(lets say something that works for both stocks, futures and forex), it peaks your interest to learn more so you keep buying more books. Amd more, amd more. Then you join a good message board like forex factory here and then you find that the myriad of ideas and info is like a tidal wave. You were interested only in fibonacci but now someone shows you they are making a killing with a moving average system, you devote months to moving average systems and then you find it works better with a few candlestick setups.

Now you get into a paid chatroom and you spend hours and hours a day absorbing what the moderator is teaching, your trading improves, yopu learn all kinds of interesting things but then you notice something frustrating..........after all this your bottom line has not improved! And as well you end your day with a massive headache as you are monitoring several systems and variations of them at once. Ever tweaking, adjusting, changing something. Then you find none of it works. So you start all over again. Only now you get suckered into some high priced software...KNOWING THE GUY WOULDNT SELL IT IF IT REALLY WORKED!!! You buy more books, you have so many free newsletters you couldnt read 1/2 of them if you started 2 hours before the market opened or your trading time started. You then throw everything out and stick to one method. Six months later after a huge lucky run of being up 20 or 30% of you bankroll you find after the smike clears you are now down 10% and wasted another 6 months on a method you tweaked to death and it worked....but just for a month. When does this cycle end? And now that so many failed traders are getting into selling chat room subscriptions and touting services and writing books, we are being flooded today with information on trading that would make Jesse Livermore commit suicide if he were alove today. So what do you do? If you focus too much on one methodology, you find it could take years to see if it even can work.(Take Fibonacci or chart patterns for example). You spread yourself too thin and you find its not even fun doing research anymore.

See, no one mentions the real reason most traders fail in these times besides not sticking to their plan and being undercapitalized. Number 3 has got to be the glut of information out there that a PHD in mathematics would say "No way i can deal with all this, it never ends.' So you have guys in one camp that have been using and tweaking moving average crossover systems for years and they never work, then you have others who spent their entire trading capital over 2 or 3 years on Elliot Wave counting software and that doesnt help them, and then you have some of us on this board who have tried several things for several years and are just lost and burned out trying all the different things that are 'supposed" to work.

I mean look at the most famous system ever, the turtles trading system. they made so many millions with it over years these guys are super rich. And now I hear you can buy their system in a book or softwarew which emans it doesnt do well anymore! So is that the fate of 90% of even disciplined traders..............to always develop something that will never work for very long? Would you like to have a dollar dollar for every trader who ran lets say 25k into 100k, quit his job, bought a new car, a bigger condo and then 6-12 months later his wife is leaving him because they are broke?!!!! I keep asking myself, why are all these new trading websites sproutiing up? And then I realize......while a few may offer legit info, most of these guys realized the money is in sales not trading. Ever wonder why so many of these famous authors of trading books then go on to open prop firms but you gotta put up money and trade their infallable system? Ever hear of Oliver Twist? Oh sorry, got the last name is wrong. "wink". Then you have guys offering software that backtest their own system for you and it shows profits for 3-5 years on paper. Why would you sell that system and bother with all the marketing if the stats will really hold up?

Anyway, So what is the answer to not getting burned out yet still enjoying the learning process?

Heck this site alone can keep you busy for years and years testing systems . Why even go anywhere else? (smile)

Hello,

I sensed some serious frustration in your post and so was compelled to reply. I was like you, I used to spend hours on this forum, hours on the charts, flitting from one trade room to another online, looking for the next holy grail of trading and profiting in this market. I would get headaches from the bombardment of information that I allowed to fly at me on a minute by minute basis, trying to listen and read and trade and fade all at once. Then, I shut it all off. Well, not all. I still have CNBC or Bloomberg on low in the background. I created my daily flight plan and checklist and I religiously go through those steps each and every day as I find a decent looking set up for the day or week. Then I quietly and easily wait for the set up to occur, I take the trade (if triggers happen), I set stop and targets. And I go about my day. Day in, day out. It is boring, actually. Some time ago I had a checklist of like 26 items, but now have pared down to just 8. Easy, cheesy. Forex is easy, it is us humans that throw our ever calculating and hungry minds into the mix that confound, complicate, and gank the whole thing up, if we let it. One thing to realize, in my experience of trying and trading several different "systems" and methods, is that some trading methods work under certain market conditions and others work well under different market conditions. And then there are market conditions in which nothing works at all! Trading is an art, knowing when to trade and when not to trade is a gift. This simple idea is the reason why we trade small and use exceptional money management rules all the time, this will protect your trading account in the long run.

Just get to know yourself first, use your strengths to help you become the trader that you know you can be. Some other trader's system may or may not work for you. Keep it simple, the pips will come.

Responding simply to the thread title, if you have a BS filter you can probably block out the majority of info on this site and others. Learn the basic fundamental facts about the market, once you have a good understanding of it you'll have a framework based on facts with which you'll be able to filter the BS from the potentially legitimate.

Also at a certain point you may want to take a break from reading forums because they can be a massive distraction. Introspect, consolidate your knowledge and beliefs, see if they are right or wrong and determine what you're missing.